


(Tell Me,) Does It Feel Good?

by Arkie



Series: DJ, Turn Up The F*king Sound [UMY Garbage Court] [4]
Category: Hat Films - Fandom, The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Gargoyles, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Kelpies, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Selkies, Urban Fantasy, Urban Magic Yogs, also mysterious frontground things, mysterious background things, the creepiest fuckin king you aint ever seen, umy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 20:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18858682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arkie/pseuds/Arkie
Summary: Ross fidgeted and couldn't come up with a response. He couldn't decipher what Sips was doing. What he wanted. He wondered if he should give it to him, if he knew.-Ross learns about the man named Sips, little by little, terror by terror.





	(Tell Me,) Does It Feel Good?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Bloody Beetroots - 35.

"Y'know," Sips mused, rifling through bags and drawers and brushing dust off the tops of lamps and dressers, "selkies don't actually need to kill to eat."

Stood barely inside the doorway, Ross blinked. He wasn't sure how or if he was supposed to respond to that.

"Not like kelpies like Smith," Sips continued, so casual and drawling, as though sharing the day's weather. "Bloodthirsty killers, that lot. But at least they can't help it. They have to, in order to survive. Trott, though." He chuckled and stood back, admiring the picture frame he'd just placed on the dresser before him. "No, he's just one crazy motherfucker. Ambitious, more like, I suppose. That's how he and Smith ended up together, you know." He shot a sidelong glance at Ross and Ross tensed in surprise, both at the look and the subject. It was something he'd wondered for as long as he'd been here.

Though very casual, Sips's gaze was skewering. As if gazing straight into his very soul. Ross had to remind himself the man had no real magic to speak of. Whatever Sips' judgement, Ross found no trace of it on his face. 

"Both were looking for new prospects, you might say," Sips continued. "Smith probably just someone to eat. But then Trott climbed up on his beach. Selkie skin in tow. Went around causing a bit of chaos, I think. Ran into Smith a lot." 

He crossed his arms and sighed. "They were probably pretty taken with each other even back then, I imagine. You might not have guessed it, though. They also infuriated the fuck out of each other. Well, maybe that was sort of one-sided. Smith was _so_ used to being in control. Anything he couldn't control, he'd kill. And with Trott, he wasn't capable of either. And Trott always wanted more, more, _more_..." 

Sips paused to stroke his chin thoughtfully. "Y'know, I've never quite known if he was kicked out of his underwater home, or if he left. Probably a mix of both. Too big for his boots, you might say. Or, rather - skin." He chuckled at his own joke. "Anyway. Basically, one night, Smith lost his patience and stole Trott's selkie skin when he wasn't looking." 

He laughed even as a spike of alarm at the words shot through Ross. He'd wondered, but to hear it laid out like that... Where on Earth did that leave Smith's standing with Ross's personal code of morals? 

Sips sighed, grinning, as though this was all a great joke. "Oh, _poor_ Smith." Ross watched him, bewildered. "He had no idea what he'd just signed up for. Trott, when he realised, was  _delighted_."

Ross frowned. "What?" he blurted out, hushed, in surprise. 

Sips was smirking, eyes sparkling, at this marvellous twist in the story. "He needed power, more than he had alone, to carry out his plans. And now he had a _kelpie_ , all of his own. Smith took the skin to put a leash on Trott, but really he just tied himself to him. I wonder how long it took him to realise he couldn't tell Trott 'no'. Maybe he never did." Sips shook his head, wryly smiling, leaning back against the dresser. "That damned selkie has Smith wrapped so tight around his finger he'd probably forget how to breathe without him."

He lifted his mug to finish the dregs of his coffee as Ross looked away, speechless, mouth fallen open.

It made sense. It made a lot of sense. All of it. So that was the story of his companions' meeting and unification. And that damn skin... Did this mean Smith had really been telling the truth back then? Trott didn't want to find the skin? And Smith was just... really bad at expressing genuineness? Well, _that_ at least was quite likely...

"The attempt backfired," Sips continued, voice low, and Ross suddenly realised he'd been watching him, carefully but not obviously. Watching his reaction. "But not because it always does. Smith was just too infatuated to use the selkie skin's magic properly. And Trott too clever. Now, in the wrong hands..." Sips trailed off and shrugged. Then he fixed Ross with a look. "What are you, then, limpet? One of 'em weird folk, right?" 

Blindsided, Ross opened his mouth and found no reason to lie. "I'm a gargoyle." 

"Uh huh," Sips grunted, a brow half-raised. "And so far from the church." 

"I left my church a while ago," Ross whispered in reply. He really wished he had some instruction from Smith or Trott right now. 

"Free-spirited as well," Sips mused, seemingly to himself. Ross averted his gaze to the floor, panicking slightly. In all his memory he had never felt more like prey beneath a predator's gaze. Even Smith or Trott didn't hold a candle to this. But perhaps theirs was softened with magic. Sips was human, and his gaze was unfettered and unfiltered and blunt. 

"And here you are. In the home of two crazy in love homicidal fae. Seemingly quite welcome." He tilted his head and smiled. "How lucky you must be." 

Ross fidgeted and couldn't come up with a response. He couldn't decipher what Sips was doing. What he wanted. He wondered if he should give it to him, if he knew. 

Sips jerked his head towards the door. "I'll be seeing you, limpet." 

Ross ducked out of the room only barely slowly enough to be respectful. 

Shaken, he automatically headed towards the kitchen - to reconnect with the others, to reassure himself of their safety, of their continued support - but froze just outside the doorway. He heard their voices, murmuring very quietly to each other. Insistent hisses, barely above their breath. He couldn't make out their words, but one shook - Trott - and the other - Smith - muttered something in return, sounding panicked and fearful. 

Ross hesitated there, feeling something in his heart slowly sinking. There was no reassurance to be found here. 

He turned and headed silently back to his room instead, leaving the two to comfort each other as best they can. 

* * *

Ross was so confused. But he thought he understood just a little more from the scene he walked in on the next morning. 

Smith and Trott's room was just down the hall from his, and he heard the en suite shower running. 

Sips had Trott crowded against a wall just a bit farther down from him.

Ross froze. Neither had noticed him. 

Sips didn't look to be actually particularly doing anything; more hovering, much too close for comfort. Trott stood straight, lips pursed, trying to pretend he wasn't pressing back against the wall for the little distance it gave. He held his head high. 

Sips was quite a bit taller, Ross's height, about, and as ever, utterly relaxed. But he had a hand curled around Trott's shoulder, loose and gentle but firm and pinning all the same, and lazy eyes curled around Trott's. He was speaking to him, in a gentle murmur, and Ross caught the threat on it even before the words reached him. 

"...ould you even let him?" Sips was murmuring. "Huh, Trott?" 

His hands trailed upwards. Now he was cupping Trott's face. Trott didn't have the space to retract from it. He didn't react at all, regardless, expression impassive and amber eyes glaring. 

"You sure do like your high selkie horse, don't you?" Sips continued in a thoughtful murmur. "How do you think it would feel? Have you ever felt it before?" He stroked his thumbs over Trott's cheeks. "All that power you love so much... just... slipping away." 

It was a hushed and intimate moment, as though between lovers. But Ross felt absolutely no love in what he saw. Instead, only the terrifying, clogging, sense of _danger_ filled him. But he didn't quite move. He was spellbound, paralysed. Like some kind of higher power was bidding him warning not to move. He had the sinking feeling that things might somehow get a lot worse if he tried. 

But he must have moved, twitched a finger just slightly, as Trott's eyes then snapped to him. Sips followed the gaze, lazily. He wasn't perturbed by the sight of Ross. Hell, his brows raised and he smiled in greeting. "Morning, limpet." But relief flooded him as Sips leant back and took a step away from Trott. "Breakfast?" he proposed. "I'll make some, how about. My treat." 

He turned and strolled towards the kitchen, stretching his arms lazily above his head and humming a tune. 

When Ross turned back to Trott, he found his eyes still fixed on him. Wide and stiff, shoulders raised protectively, breathing jerky and shuttering. Ross didn't dare approach, watching Trott for some sign of - something. Both still caught in the paralysis of fear. 

But then Trott's face smoothed. 

He readjusted his feet, resettled. Then he shot Ross an expectant sort of look, an eyebrow raised judgmentally. "Come on," he snapped, defensive. Ross could still see the ghost of fear lingering in his eyes. But there was also a resignation to it, a repetition of a pattern. The recovering motions were familiar. This had happened before. Maybe many times. 

Trott turned and followed purposefully after Sips, head held high. 

\---

Breakfast was an odd and only partially tense affair. Sips chattered away as he fried up something in the pan, telling some stupid story to do with the food, while Ross and Trott sat in silence at opposite ends of the breakfast bar. There was no discussion of what just occurred. 

Five minutes later, the shower stopped and Smith walked in, hair damp, and the instant he did so his gaze met Trott's and something passed between them. Smith stuck very close to Trott for the entire rest of breakfast.

Then, while they all munched on something greasy and eggy, Sips suddenly spoke, disturbing the slow uncoiling in Ross's stomach and fringing the room on a spike of fear. 

"I'll need to go out today," Sips said, buttering a piece of toast. "Got someone in the city who might know more. Gotta shut this jokester down before he hurts himself." He chuckled. The others watched him silently, tensed for instruction. "I'll need to take someone with me, though. Ain't the friendliest part of town, I'd say."

Trott and Smith didn't share a look this time, but that was as telling as if they had. "I'll come," Smith muttered, too-easily. Neither he nor Trott revealed anything through their faces. 

"Alright." Sips shrugged, taking a bite. "Be ready to leave soon, right?"

A few minutes later, Sips had wandered off to his room to prepare, and Ross took it upon himself to finish clearing up. He heard Trott and Smith murmuring behind him, a flurry of panic and fear flooding in in Sips's absence. It went conspicuously quiet behind him, then, and he turned to see what had happened. 

He found them hugging. Holding each other tight, faces buried in shoulders and fingers gripping. A reassurance and a confession of terror. Smith's arms were tight and Trott looked even smaller than usual. 

For a moment, Ross couldn't look away. They'd chosen to do this in front of him, decided it was worth it, to show such vulnerability and intimacy. Was it an admission of trust? Or was he just hardly more than a piece of furniture, not worth the effort of secrecy? 

He turned back around, and focussed strictly on returning condiments to their rightful places. 

\---

Sips's presence had changed things, even while he wasn't around. 

Later, Trott and Ross opened the club alone, and Ross watched Trott throw himself at the crowd, flirting wordlessly and spilling out sex and appeal from every angle, moulding whichever way he pointed it. 

One poor soul was the lucky one, offering herself over to the magic, to the beat, to the city and Trott's unending depths. Drawn into a back room willingly, never to reemerge. Trott didn't offer Ross join, didn't even look his way. 

When he reappeared, Trott had quieted and gone still, licking his lips in a satisfied sort of way. But Ross watched his eyes flick about the crowd even as he lingered at the fringes. Hungry again, seeking a real satisfaction Ross knew he won't find here. 

His magic, hot and wet, was threatening to spill free once again, when Ross stepped close to his elbow. Not touching, not speaking. Just a gentle reminder. In Smith's absence, he felt a slight tilt of something. Responsibility, maybe. 

And Trott did stop. He looked at Ross, and, in slow understanding, frowned. His eyes narrowed and went cold, but Ross wasn't anywhere near to backing down. He cared too much. 

Trott maybe saw that, as something in his eyes reached a point where all illusion dropped and something twisted. Someone else may have burst into tears, but as it was, he scowled fiercely and whipped around on the spot and stormed off, magic drawn close and avoiding the crowd. He slammed out through a door Ross knew lead to the rooftop overlook, where he'd once been inducted, and Ross was glad, as much as pained him to watch such distress. There wasn't much trouble Trott could get into out there. 

He turned, silently surveyed the crowd and popping lights and thumming beat. He'd mind the club for now.  

\---

Sips and Smith returned later in the night, with much moaning and groaning from Sips about how "That guy was so fucking sketchy, I don't even know what his goddamn problem was!" 

From the rant of a debrief, Ross could gather no real information had been obtained, despite their efforts. Smith and Trott only lingered long enough for halfhearted appearances' sake before vanishing off together to their room. Ross followed suit as soon as Sips gave something vaguely resembling a dismissal. He couldn't bear to stay in that man's presence any longer than necessary. It didn't matter that the man had no magic; Ross felt the tendrils of seeping and slickness and awfulness, and how they wound round his every pore and thought. This wasn't magic - this was power. 

Come the following breakfast, Sips was once again heading out and in want of a guard. 

"I'll come," Smith immediately said. 

But - "No," Sips mused. "I think I'll take Trott." - and they all froze. "Can't have you getting too lazy, Trotty." Sips smiled indulgently. 

Trott didn't react at all - didn't even strictly agree. A tiny rebellion. The only one he was allowed. By all appearances, he recovered first; unfreezing to take a sip of water and stiffly continue eating, without lifting his gaze from the meal. 

Smith, by comparison, looked horrified. His eyes were on Sips, wide and mouth agape. But, then, slowly, his eyes fell to the table, helpless and tortured and stricken. Surrendering. Even he didn't dare make a sound of protest. 

And Ross, by now, knew better than to believe what Sips's attitude suggested. Easygoing and oblivious, trustworthy and harmless. Sips knew _exactly_ what he was doing, at every moment. His easygoing nature came not from carelessness and ignorance, but from truly believing himself the most unconquerable, most unquestionable presence in the room. And from what Ross had seen, he was right to. 

Once Trott and Sips had left - (Trott kept his eyes on the floor and stayed silent, and Sips grumbled to the room at large how he dearly hoped today's lead would prove a better one, and swept them out the door) - the apartment went quiet for a while. 

But it wasn't long later when Ross emerged from his room and found Smith holed up up ahead, facing away, head down, a shoulder leant against the wall a few steps from the front door. 

Ross moved closer, curious. When he was a few steps away, Smith must have heard him, as he suddenly jumped and spun. 

"Jesus Christ!" he gasped, eyes wide. "How are you so quiet? You're made of fucking-- _stone_ , you should be loud as shit!"

"Well, I am a statue." Ross chewed on the inside his cheek, watching thoughtfully. "We're... pretty quiet by nature." 

"Oh." Smith frowned. "I... guess." 

"What are you doing?" Ross asked. 

Smith scowled and viciously crossed his arms, turning back to the door. "Nothing."

Ross waited. 

"Being fucking... _stupid_ ," Smith grumbled, eventually, mostly to himself. Then, quieter. "There's nothing I can  _fucking_ do." 

"How is he so powerful?" Ross whispered, so agonisingly curious. 

Smith shrugged one vicious shoulder. "Fucking... _persistence_. Willpower. Cleverness." He snorted. " _Luck_."

"Even though he's human?" 

" _Because_ he's human." Smith shot him a glare. "Fae have more natural power, but we have  _rules_. Rules we  _have_ to follow. Humans don't. Usually, we turn it on them. It works in our favour. Sometimes..." He looked away, back to the door, face scrunched, halfway to a snarl. "It _doesn't_." 

And Ross  _felt_ it. He  _felt_ the sadness of these creatures, these old fae, forced into a life of servitude and fear at the hands of a comparative baby of a human. That's not to say it wasn't their own fault - it probably was, from what he'd seen. Underestimated or wronged the wrong person, tricked into it before they realised it was too late. 

But Smith was continuing, frowning at the floor, looking miles away. "But if it just weren't for his fucking thing with Trott..." Smith cut off and shook his head. 

"I spent  _so_ long doing  _everything_ for him. Protecting him, working for him, trying to keep him in check though obviously that doesn't really work..." He trailed off, staring into space. "He's the one thing I can't protect him from. The one thing we're fucking enslaved to." His voice broke on his last few of words. "The one thing  _I have to_."

Ross felt like it was his own heart breaking, at the words, the speech. The pure, genuine pain in them, and his own at the situation as a whole. 

He wondered if it was pushing it to ask: "Why is it Trott he's so focussed on?"

Luckily, Smith only shrugged, a little helplessly. "They're both ambitious and powerful pricks, happy to step on those below them to get to where they want to be. Only, Trott's fae, and he's had a long time to get to where he wants to be. And Sips _surpassed_ him. Maybe that's why. The rush of holding that over his head. Maybe it's because he's a selkie, a thing known for their innocence and naivety and ability to be a fucking enslaved spouse. Maybe it's just because he's  _him_. I don't know."

There was a long pause, but just when Ross though he wouldn't continue, Smith spoke again in a whisper. 

"I can't let him get the skin." 

Then he shot a severe glare at Ross. " _You_ can't let him get the skin." 

"Of course I won't," Ross shot back, horrified. 

"You  _can't_. If he got his hands on that, then... it'd be fucking... _over_. As it is, we can't fight him. But at least he can't control Trott's _mind_. If he had the skin, he would have complete control of us both." 

Smith looked so desolate, so hopeless and furious and desperate, half crumpled against the wall, looking towards the door as if wishing to tear it open and rip the selkie back into his arms. But instead he stood still, trapped and suckered, trembling just a little, from fury or fear or sheer emotion. 

Before he knew what he was doing, Ross was moving, reaching out a hand. He got halfway, hesitated. But no - he frowned, powered through, refusing the instinct, and lightly touched the back of Smith's arm. Smith reacted, looked at him, but didn't retract, so, fingers grasped gently in support, Ross spoke to him. 

"It'll be ok," he said, looking deep into Smith's blue eyes. Distantly, he wondered if he was working a magic of his own. Weaving a spell, through words and intent and eyes. After all, what's really the difference between magic and simple power? "I'll help if I can, but you'll both be ok. Trust in it. Trust  _me_."

And Smith looked at him, brow creased and form still, oddly hypnotized. Maybe his words had had an effect. Maybe he was just surprised at his boldness. But Smith didn't move, even swallowed, eyes locked on his, searching and desperate, grasping for the feeble buoy of his hope, his own long since drowned. 

Ross gladly let him, passed it to him freely, a meagre but perhaps sufficient meal on a much too large plate. If he couldn't do anything more, he could do this. He didn't recall many specifics of his past, it wasn't in his nature to, but something he knew from experience was this - that all too often, the pinpoint of balance in a shifting and unfair world rested on the presence of a simple speck of hope. 

So he held on, gently, and let Smith rest on him. 

**Author's Note:**

> *waggles fingers dramatically*
> 
> Hoo boy, this part sure gave me a little trouble. Pretty intense to write. Not helped of course by how it wound up being a fair bit longer than previous parts. Made it through in the end, though!
> 
> I'd like to take this moment to say thank you very very much for all the comments! I'm really quite a newbie to all this, so I was taken by surprise at how much of an affect each and every word of reaction has for me. Also, to the silent kudo's-ers! You're very appreciated too. :)
> 
> P.S: Three, are you still reblogging to the urbanmagicyogs tumblr? If so, I'll post the links to this series on there, if not I probably won't bother.


End file.
